Unfortunately, some people are quick to believe anything they read online, making it easier than ever for false information to spread like wildfire on social media. For this reason, it is important that platforms take action when it comes to fact-checking posts. Twitter has taken this a step further by developing a community-based approach to misinformation with the implementation of Twitter Birdwatch.
In this article, you’ll learn what the Twitter Birdwatch program is and how you can join if you want to help stop the spread of misinformation on the platform and enable healthier conversations on Twitter.
What is Twitter Birdwatch?
With its effortless real-time updates, Twitter has long been the place to go when you want to learn about the latest news from around the world. In fact, 69% of American adult Twitter users turn to the platform as a way to stay up-to-date with the latest news.
But when you think it’s so easy to spread misinformation online, it’s more important than ever to make sure the content being shared is factual. After all, not everyone is inclined to do their own research to confirm the information they read. For example, many people share links with misleading headlines but never read the actual article in its entirety. This is exactly why reading an article is one of the things you should do before retweeting a post.
In an effort to address the spread of misinformation, the Twitter Birdwatch program was announced in 2021. This community-driven approach allows users to identify information within a tweet that they believe is fraudulent. Users can then add annotations that provide informative context to the original message.
(Note: Currently only available in the United States.)
How to contribute to Twitter Birdwatch
To encourage more users to join Twitter Birdwatch, the platform is rolling out a more efficient login process. However, if you are interested, there are some eligibility requirements that you should be aware of first. Birdwatch contributors must have a phone number verified by a trusted US-based carrier, no recent Twitter violations, and at least six months on the platform. If you meet these requirements, you’re good to sign up. You can join Birdwatch here.
As a new contributor, you will start with an initial impact rating score of zero. This score will increase as you continually evaluate the notes of other contributors and reliably identify notes that are “helpful” and “not helpful”. When your evaluation impact score reaches five, you can start writing your notes. The more useful notes you write and rate, the higher your score will be. However, your score may drop and you may lose your ability to write notes. This happens if you repeatedly write notes that are considered unhelpful by other contributors.
Here’s an overview of how Twitter Birdwatch works:
- As a contributor, you will write and rate notes about tweets that are potentially misleading.
- If your note was found useful by a wide range of other contributors, it will appear publicly on Twitter. In an effort to prevent biased ratings, notes appear in tweets only if they are rated as useful by enough people from different perspectives.
- After all, people are choosing the notes that appear. Not Twitter.
Is a program like this really necessary?
Considering how quickly false information can spread online, the Twitter Birdwatch program can be useful for users. And it is already showing that it is effective. According to Twitter, “people who see a Birdwatch note are, on average, 20-40% less likely to agree with the substance of a potentially misleading tweet than someone who only sees the tweet.”
Once this program becomes more widespread, it is possible that this number will increase.
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